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The M7V is the successor to the M6V and is Plextor's new value-priced solid-state drive (SSD). At launch the M7V has a low suggested price of $50, $71 and $146 for 128GB, 256GB and 512GB, respectively (actual street price will likely be lower). In return, its performance was slightly slower than the M6V. Still, the drive does what it's designed to do: act as a replacement drive for computers that still run on regular old hard drives. Used in this way, it will help significantly boost the computer's performance.

Plextor M7V SSD's specs

Capacities

128GB

256GB

512GB

From factor

SATA 3 (6Gbps) 2.5-inch standard

SATA 3 (6Gbps) 2.5-inch standard

SATA 3 (6Gbps) 2.5-inch standard

Model

PX-128M7VC

PX-256M7VC

PX-512M7VC

Cache

256MB DDR3

512MB DDR3

768MB DDR3

Controller

Marvel l 88SS1074B1

Marvel l 88SS1074B1

Marvel l 88SS1074B1

NAND Flash tpe

Toshiba Toggle 15nm TLC

Toshiba Toggle 15nm TLC

Toshiba Toggle 15nm TLC

Sequential read

Up to 560 MB/s

Up to 560 MB/s

Up to 560 MB/s

Sequential write

Up to 500 MB/s

Up to 530 MB/s

Up to 530 MB/s

Random read

Up to 97K IOPS

Up to 98K IOPS

Up to 98K IOPS

Random write

Up to 51K IOPS

Up to 84K IOPS

Up to 84K IOPS

Endurance (total data written)

80TB

160TB

320TB

Warranty

3 years

3 years

3 years

The M7V can fit in any space where a regular hard drive is used, however in a desktop, you'll want to opt for a drive bay bracket (not included) to keep it from moving around inside the case. The drive supports the latest SATA 6Gbps standard but will work with all SATA revisions.

Other high-end drives, such as the Samsung 850 Pro, tend to include a drive bay bracket, or cloning software or a USB-to-SATA cable to help you migrate to the SSD from a regular hard drive. The M7V includes none of those extras, but that's generally the case for budget SSDs.

Legend:

Note:

In testing, the M7V did well for a value SSD. In fact in certain tests it was faster than some other budget drives, such as the Toshiba Q300 or the OCZ Triton 100.

The M7V also has a high endurance level, meaning you can write a lot of data to it before it becomes unreliable. (Read more about SSD endurance here.) Plextor says that the M7V can handle up to 80TB, 120TB and 320TB written for the 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities, respectively. More specifically, if you write about 50GB of data to the 128GB capacity drive every day, it'd take some five years before its endurance ran out. The larger capacities would respectively take double and quadruple that amount of time. In regular usage, most of us don't write more than a few gigabytes per day, and most days we don't write anything to the computer's internal drive at all.

PC Mark 8 overall storage performance

Crucial MX200

4968

256.94

Plextor M6v

4957

245.57

OCZ ACR 100 series

4948

203.72

Transcend SSD370S

4927

210.4

SanDisk Ultra II

4922

208.55

OCZ Vector 180

4921

204.04

Plextor M7V

4903

198.14

Toshiba Q300

4894

186.68

OCZ Trion 100

4875

175.38

Legend:

Storage Score

Storage bandwith (MB/s)

Note:

Longer bars indicate better performance.

In all, while the M7V isn't the fastest standard SSD on the market, it's also not the slowest -- but it is among the most affordable. It's a good SSD that will last years with normal use and give you a noticeable performance boost over any traditional hard drive.